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Regional demand for pipes and piping solutions has seen explosive growth in the last five years. With key projects pushing ahead in the oil and gas business, and buoyed by the exponential growth in demand for municipal and utilities based projects around the Gulf, the best and brightest pipe suppliers have shifted their manufacturing bases to the Middle East.
Recently Hedley International Emirates Contracting, a specialist in glass reinforced plastic (GRP) piping solutions has seen an upswing in demand from upstream oil and gas companies. Building on a rich pedigree of municipal and utilities infrastructure works across the region, the chairman and CEO, Mohammed Al Refaey, says 2009’s business strategy is focused on building its oil and gas customer base.
“Increasingly customers are moving from steel pipes to GRB and GRE pipes because they are locally manufactured. GRE has strong anti-corrosive qualities which appeals to the oil and gas industry, and its lighter, and can last longer – up to 60 years in some applications,” says Refaey.
The critical applications which have seen the quickest take-up in regional energy projects have been water-handling applications, but Rafaey expects to see more business in gas and crude handling. “We have done projects with ADCO and ADGAS recently in Habshan oilfield and Ruwais in Abu Dhabi.
The pipes are mostly used for water injection and infrastructure pipes, and desalination operations and outflow.” Other areas which GRP is particularly suited to include offshore applications, thanks to its weight advantage, and fire fighting infrastructure, where shorter installation times are attractive.
